About Brand Imaging

Before we begin, it’s important to have a clear understanding of just what a brand image is. Here’s the short definition:

The consumer’s impression of a company’s qualities and shortcomings.

These qualities and shortcomings can be real or imaginary – it doesn’t really matter because people’s perception is their reality. What does matter is that you can impact those perceptions in a positive way through social media. Here’s how:

Minimize Promotion

When using social media as a marketing tool, always be mindful of the fact that people use it to improve their lives in some way. What that “way” is differs from one person to the next. But one thing is certain: People don’t use social media to be bombarded with advertising from their social media contacts, friends, and followers.

So the first rule in brand imaging on social media is to avoid the excessive use of purely promotional material. How much is permissible? Generally speaking, if you’re posting on social media daily, you could safely post a promotional message once a month. But you don’t really need to even do that. Instead…

Become a Content Machine

The second rule of brand imaging on social media is to frequently publish relevant, shareable content about clean energy and related topics. How frequently? Once per day, at a minimum. You’re probably clenching your jaw right now thinking; “I don’t have time to create one or more pieces of content a day!” Relax… I’m not suggesting you do that. What I am suggesting is that you engage in some content curation.

Content curation is the practice of finding online content that someone else has published, and share a link to that content with your social media followers. Of course, you don’t just share the link. You include a brief comment with your own thoughts about the topic being covered in the content. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of extra minutes to do this. After all, you already spend time reading to keep up with the industry, right? Investing a few minutes sharing some of what you’ve read is time well spent.

Sharing You

Of course, it’s not advisable to only publish curated content. To maximize the effectiveness of your social media branding efforts, you should also share some of your own content. You may already be publishing content on a company blog or other theme-based web pages. To use this content as a branding tool, simply share a link to these articles on your social media outlets. Of course, your accompanying comments should be limited to a brief summary of what the article you’re linking to is about.

The Cumulative Effect

Remember our short definition of brand image? Well, all of this non-promotional content serves to build your reputation and credibility as an expert in the field of clean energy. In other words, you’ve enhanced the consumer’s impression of your company’s qualities and, over time, diminished or eliminated any perceived shortcomings.

And remember when I said you wouldn’t even need to publish promotional content? By positioning your company as an expert in clean energy, yours will be the first company your social media followers think of when they’re in need of a clean energy solution.

Everybody wins.

If you’d like to learn more about how to create your brand image as a clean energy company, or you need help with other aspects of your marketing strategy, contact us online or call 408-529-8325.

According to a recent article in Greentech Media, marketing solar energy has a number of problems, not the least of which is the fact that most people surveyed could not name a single residential solar power provider. In almost every other industry, people can identify at least one and even more companies that provide a service.

The other major problem that that the solar power industry has is the widespread perception that it is more expensive than power derived from more conventional means. To be sure everyone knows that solar is better for the environment than fossil fuels. But the perception that it is expensive has been a barrier for the widespread acceptance of solar power.

Thus marketers of solar power have a two-fold problem. First they have to establish a brand identification. Then they will have to educate the public about the virtues of solar power and prove to potential customers that in many circumstances it can be cheaper than drawing power from the grid.

The trick seems to be is not to try to draw differences in technology, since the differences between one tape of solar panel and another are very subtle to most end users. The trick is to realize that a solar power company, like every other company, is providing a service. The service in this case is less expensive electricity that is environmentally benign, with the cost benefits being the most important. Thus the marketing of solar power is as much an education exercise as it is an attempt to one-up the competition.